Baby it’s cold outside…

You know the weather has been mild when Firefox no longer fills in the URL and you have to figure it out, never having bookmarked the damn thing. I read a personal report on some Mexican message board I read that we would be getting a norte today and kept meaning to check the weather sites but never got around to it. This morning it is so cold (73F 59% humididy; low 20’sC) that Jamie is considering long pants. Tomorrow the frigid weather forecast is for Seventy TWO degrees. The HIGH!! Thankfully, by next Tuesday, we’ll be back to our 90F temps (mid 30’sC).

We ushered in the new year in typical fashion; we generally don’t make too much of any holiday and I’m not sure we have ever celebrated New Year’s with the kids but our party-animal neighbors from Canada (with 4 kids) not only CAN party down for any occasion, but also do a great job of it. We started the night dipping fruits and breadstuffs (but no open mouths) in the fountain of chocolate they’d setup and finished dancing on the beach with the rest of the party-goers as fireworks on Cozumel (across the channel) boomed in the sky. It was a bit frightening and a bit entertaining to watch the 16yo and 14yo neighbor girls fending off the interests of the waiters and attempt to dance with our little girls. It is almost impossible to believe that their 14yo is only 6 months older than Jesse. Girls definitely mature faster than boys.

Pike has been fighting some fever since NYE and down here it can never be as simple as a tummy ache or a fever. The threat of Dengue, Typhoid and diseases we can’t even begin to imagine loom large on the horizon and when fever sticks around for days it can never be dismissed as anything simple. Thankfully, this morning he seems to be responding to rest and herbs (OGR and Astralgas root) as it has decreased to 101F. He has absolutely no appetite but the dreadful headache is gone after only 2 days, so that pretty much rules out Dengue and now we focus on typhoid. This winter has been simply AWFUL on our immune systems and I can’t figure out why, other than the fact that we are generally on our own and not introduced to many germs, but being in one place for so long, we are picking up the snowbird, airplane, California and local germs. See? Yet ANOTHER reason to keep the wheels rolling down the highway.

It is looking like we won’t be heading to Central America this winter, but I’m hoping next winter we will. We are now focusing on finding a house in Merida, planning on heading to the US to workamp the summer in a National Park and hoping to visit California for Thanksgiving. It is so hard for us to figure out next week, let alone next winter, but we’re working on it.